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Faculty
Our faculty members are dedicated and experienced professionals with a genuine commitment to teaching at the graduate level. Our belief is that students will more readily acquire meaningful skills and knowledge when they're actively involved in the learning process -- through seminars, workshops, discussions, peer critiques, and the hands-on opportunity to practice and perfect their craft.
Liz Abrams-Morley received an MSW from University of Wisconsin Madison and an MFA in Writing with a Poetry Concentration from Vermont College. She is the author of Learning to Calculate the Half Life, a full-length poetry collection (Zinka Press, 2001) and the chapbook, What Winter Reveals (Plan B Press, 2005), has co-authored two limited edition artists' books, and is in the process of co-authoring two textbooks and completing a second full-length collection of poetry. Her poems and short stories have been widely published in nationally distributed journals and anthologies and both poetry and prose have been featured on NPR. She is a recipient of three grants from the Ragdale Foundation and two Special Opportunity Stipends from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In addition to teaching at Rosemont, Liz co-founded and runs an on-line writing workshop, Around the Block Writers Collaborative, and serves as an artist in education in Pennsylvania schools. She frequently reads her work in reading series at a variety of venues in the Philadelphia region.
Richard D. Bank received his B.A. from Temple University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. He is the author of five books and has published numerous articles, essays/memoirs, books reviews and short stories in a wide variety of publications. Richard is a past president of the Philadelphia Writers' Organization and currently a Board member. In addition to teaching at Rosemont, Richard has conducted workshops at several writers' conferences and teaches writing courses at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University and Montgomery County Community College.
Elliott batTzedek holds an M.S. in Women's Studies from Minnesota State University at Mankato and B.A.s in English Literature and English Composition from Beloit College. She has worked as an editor, writer and reviewer for several local and national alternative and community newspapers. Currently, Ms. batTzedek works as a technical writer and book list manager for Children's Literacy Initiative in Philadelphia. She believes in a teaching style that is interactive, that empowers students, and that creates a learning community.
Liz Corcoran received her M.A. in Creative Writing from Temple University. Her most recent short story, "An Hour at the Station," appeared in Oasis. She is currently working on a novel about stand-up comedians and a collection of stories that examines modern interpretations of magic. Liz has also taught literature and writing afor Temple, Drexel, and Widener Universities, as well as the University of Pennsylvania's Writers' Conference.
Susan DiGironimo earned her degree from Moore College of Art. A certified Adobe instructor, she has taught at Rosemont for several years and also teaches in the graduate division of the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science. Susan has a great deal of experience in the field of computer design, and she serves as Coordinator of the Digital Design component of Rosemont's graduate program.
Dan Driscoll is a graduate of the Temple University Writing Program. He has published a children's book with Scholastic, and is finishing his first novel and a collection of short fiction. Dan has also taught at Temple and Drexel Universities, as well as in a program for adults returning to school.
Robert Finegan holds a B.A. in English and History from the University of Delaware and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. His short stories have appeared in The Greensboro Review, The Antietam Review, The Sun, River Styx, The Other Side, and Caesura. His story "Help Me with This" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was the recipient of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in Literature in 2001. He has taught fiction writing at The University of Pittsburgh and Drexel University.
Maurizio Giammarco received his M.A. in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English from Temple and has taught at the university for the last eleven years. His articles and book, theater, and film reviews have appeared in The Temple News, Reel Visions, City Weekly Paper, and The Journal of Modern Literature. He is an independent filmmaker whose films and videos have appeared in university festivals. In 1994, he received an award from the Hunger Task Force of the Diocese of New Jersey for his documentary on hunger, a work distributed and shown throughout the Garden State.
Beth Goldner is the author of The Number We End Up With (Counterpoint Press, 2005) and Wake: Stories (Counterpoint Press, 2003). Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including The Missouri Review, The Massachussetts Review, Literal Latte, StoryQuarterly, and The Blue Mesa Review. For five years she has been selected for the Writing Aloud program, where actors bring contemporary fiction to life on stage, at the Interact Theatre in Philadelphia. She is a graduate of West Chester University. She is also a managing editor for a medical journal in Center City, and is at work on her second novel.
Bruce Graham is a graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He has authored twelve produced plays, including Burkie and the 1998 Rosenthal Prize winner, Coyote on a Fence, which received two Drama Desk nominations. He spent eight years as Playwright-in-Residence at the Philadelphia Festival Theater for New Plays. His play According to Goldman premiered at the Philadelphia Company in 2004. Graham's film and television credits include Dunston Checks In, Anastasia, and A Ring of Endless Light. He received the 1992 Princess Grace Foundation Statuette as well as awards from the Pew Foundation, Theater Association of Pennsylvania, and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Alan Guenther is a working journalist who has won seven national awards in the past three years, including the 2005 award from the National Mental Health Association for 19 stories on the murder of a mentally ill inmate in the Camden County Jail. For the past five years, he has been the chief political and investigative reporter for the Courier-Post in South Jersey. He was previously a staff writer at a monthly magazine, and his areas of expertise include feature writing and creative nonfiction. He is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh's writing program, with a minor in playwriting.
Anne Kaier (Ph.D. Harvard University) teaches poetry workshops in the MFA program as well as courses in contemporary American women writers, Modern British literature, medieval studies and modern poetry. Her poetry chapbook, InFire (2005) is available from Skintype Press. Her work has appeared in The Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Philadelphia Poets, American Writing: A Magazine, HLFQ, Sinister Wisdom and online at m.a.g.com. Her work received mention in the Inkwell Poetry Contest; she participated in The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and has been a featured poet at various venues including the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Kelly Writers House at Penn. She appeared at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania Writers' Conference.
Sarah Mann-O'Donnell teaches theory, literature and creative design at Rosemont. Her areas of special interest include feminist literature, extreme literature, 20th century French philosophy, feminist art history, contemporary art history, sound art, performance art, critical visual practice, and intersections of philosophy, science, literature and art. She earned an undergraduate degree in art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she concentrated in new media, performance and critical studies. She then completed a MA with distinction in Gender, Culture and Modernity at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her dissertation, titled Becoming Alan Turing: Toward a Lived Theory of Difference, considered the early mathematical work of Alan Turing through the lens of French poststructuralist philosophy. A version of the dissertation was recently published by Goldsmiths, and is available for free download on their website. Most recently, she gave a paper extending the argument presented in her dissertation as part of the International Conference on Computers and Philosophy at the Institut Universitaire de Technologie in Laval, France. Sarah's current research interests include movement, mathematics, critical and feminist perspectives on Nancy Drew, and the films of Peter Greenaway. She also maintains her own website.
Rebecca Kratz Mays earned her B.A. in English from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and her M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked for many years as the managing editor for Pendle Hill Publications, a Quaker press in the Philadelphia area. She has also taught adult classes at Pendle Hill in literature and religion.
Janice Merendino earned her B.F.A. in Fine Arts and B. S. in Art Education from Moore College of Art and Design. She has been part of the faculty of Rosemont College since 1980. As creator of The Branch Out Project, Janice conducts workshops in which participants, by learning how to draw, can use the thinking process used in drawing to help them become more creative in their problem-solving. She has given her workshops for major corporations and government agencies (including the U.S. Navy, Wyeth-Ayerst, and TIAA-CREF), numerous community non-profit groups and in schools (both for students and as professional development for teachers). She co-authored two articles on using the arts to stimulate creative thinking in law practices. In 2002 and 2003 The Branch Out Project received a Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership Grant to work with the Roosevelt Alternative School in Norristown, PA. In addition, Janice is a practicing artist and has exhibited her paintings on paper and ceramic work in several group and solo shows, including a one-woman exhibition in Japan.
Timothy V. O'Hara holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Scranton and some doctoral credits from the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University. He is an Associate Professor of English at Rosemont College, specializing in medieval and modern literature as well as in genre courses in fiction and poetry. Over the years, he has published numerous reviews and has recently delivered a paper on the secular city and published two poems in national journals.
Joseph M. Paprzycki is a graduate of Philadelphia's Pierce College. He is the author of thirty-three plays and four screenplays. Three of his full-length plays have been produced in New York and Philadelphia, and his one acts have been produced by theaters around the country. One of them, Purple Hearts, won the BEST PLAY contest last year, sponsored by VSA Arts of New Jersey.
Sue Pierce has a B.A. in French and East Asian Studies from Colby College and a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She has worked as a magazine editor, a corporate communications consultant, radio co-host and now teaches writing at Arcadia University and Rosemont College. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in various journals, including The Pitkin Review. Her short story "Diego and Bob" was included in the short fiction anthology Close Calls (St. Martins Press). She was associate editor for the literary journal American Writing: A Magazine and for five years has been the faculty coordinator of the Writers' Conference at Penn, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania's Special Programs office. She is currently working on a book of short prose called When We Were Amish.
Frank D. Quattrone the managing editor and principal writer for Ticket, Montgomery Newspapers' award-winning weekly guide to entertainment and the arts, is also a regular contributor to the magazines Montgomery County Town & Country Living, Chester County Town & Country Living, and Bucks County Town & Country Living. A long-time college professor (he taught English at Spring Garden College for 24 years), he now teaches courses in journalism part-time at Penn State Abington College and is faculty advisor to The Lion's Roar, the campus newspaper. Since 2002, he has been teaching courses on copyediting, magazine and features publication, book marketing and more in Rosemont College's graduate program in English & Publishing. Author of the Arcadia Publishing Company's "Images of America" volume called Ambler, he is also a board member of the Philadelphia Writers' Conference.
Program Administrators
Judith Renyi, Dean of Graduate Studies
610-527-0200, Ext. 2387
Liz Corcoran, Director of Creative Writing and English Literature
610-527-0200, Ext. 2994
Rebecca Mays, Director of English & Publishing
610-527-0200, Ext. 2303
Karen Scales, Director of Graduate Student Services
610-527-0200, Ext. 2187
Debbie O'Brien, Administrative Assistant
610-527-0200 Ext. 2958